Come Hell or High Water
by mrstserc
Summary: A companion piece to Winter's Pale Light. This takes place after 8.14 and contains spoilers. Read at your own risk. Sam muses on the same events as Dean with a wildly different perspective. I do not own Supernatural.


Polished wood gleaming on floors and furniture reflects the lighting in the library, lamps and sconces taking away any cave feeling even with the cathedral ceiling. More than anything this part of the Men of Letters archive reminds Sam of a church, a house of worship, but what is worshipped here is knowledge. Sam can live with that. It's not like Heaven or Hell has been good to him.

Sam can live with this too, this kind of a hybrid of a Man of Letters and a Hunter. Plenty of research material available to help them hunt smarter, he thinks. He shakes his head; Bobby would have loved this place. And Sam? Sam may have found his perfect niche in a life he never really wanted, but never can escape. Hard to pretend monsters are make believe after the life he has lived.

As he looks around, listening for sounds of his brother in the bunker, Sam stretches his back to relieve some of the stiffness hunching over has caused and idly notices that he is getting hungry. That makes him wonder what Dean's cooking for dinner and brings a small smile to his face at his brother's domesticity. Seeing the nest-building side of Dean has been sweet, but Sam values his limbs too much to say something like that to his brother.

And yet, thinking about his brother also causes a wave of pain to wash across Sam's feelings. Dean's still struggling with cripplingly low self-worth, the gift from Dad that keeps on giving, Sam thinks. He was going to face that Hell hound as a suicide mission. A crazy idea that Sam can't stand to think about, his brother acting like his life doesn't mean crap, like being a soldier is all he is and will ever be.

Thoughts like that can lead to bad places, places Sam spent too much time in this past year when he was so unsure of what he was supposed to do that he panicked. He sighs, refusing to be overly harsh on himself. Sam has spent so many years trying to be the sensible balance for his brother, the one more willing to accept his own wants and needs, that losing Dean had been like one wing falling off an airplane. Damned hard to do anything but try to live through the crash.

Sam pushes the chair back from the library table and sets off in search of his brother. Not seeing or hearing him in the kitchen, shower, or bedroom, Sam starts racking his memory. Did Dean say he was going out, but I was too engrossed to remember? Sam looks outside the front door at the Impala sitting sleek and lonely in her parking space. Guess not.

Ever since the Hell hound when Dean made his fatalistic pronouncement about planning to die (again) to complete the mission, Sam's realized that he may need to take a more active role in helping his brother fight off the depression that is so evident. All the research he found says that when a loved one makes suicidal statements, ignoring them is the worst thing you can do. It was a cry for help, and Sam plans to make sure Dean gets through this crisis. But Sam has to admit he's a little worried right now, not being able to find him.

Sam's hopeful though because Dean seemed to accept his offer to help, and his big brother trusts him again. Trusts him to do this right, to complete the steps needed to turn Hell into a one-way destination, to get them both through the tunnel alive. To move into the light. He thinks back to what he said, to the promise he made.

"_I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't. I am. But it's there. And if you come with me, I can take you to it." _Sam plans to keep that promise – well, he'd say come Hell or high water, but in this case that could be literal. They've both "been there, done that." Purgatory, though, that's something new, and his big brother is trying to Winchester it away, sweep it under the rug and act like its forgotten.

Sam's research in PTSD says that is not a good way to handle it. He figures what Dean is going through is like all the soldiers coming back from Afghanistan right now. First they are almost euphoric for having made it, like Dean was, but some have survivor's guilt. Sam noticed that in Dean earlier, before Castiel showed up alive. This comparison worries Sam. The suicide rate from those same soldiers is higher than it has ever been. He is not going to stand by and watch his brother throw his life away. Not on his watch.

"Like I've got room to talk anymore," Sam mutters to himself. He just spent an entire year freaking out instead of dealing with his issues. When Dean and Cas vanished after ganking Dick Roman, Sam's mind went blank because he didn't have his normal resources, no Bobby, no Castiel, no Dean. But when you get down to it, he could have thought of something. He could have handled his emotions better; he could have kept his head straight to try to figure out what happened, maybe checked with Missouri Mosley or something. Instead he let Dean down.

"I'm gonna make it up to him," Sam feels a warm glow in his heart that his brother is willing to let him take the lead in this, to let him be the strong one, to maybe learn to ask for help when he is feeling overwhelmed, because Dean needs to learn that getting help isn't a sign of weakness. And, yeah, it feels good to be able to offer that help.

God, it feels good to have finally killed a Hell hound like the one that killed his brother in front of him. It feels good to have somewhere clean and safe to sleep at night. It feels good to have his head on straight and to be able to be the strong one for his brother.

Sam hears the bunker door open and close. "Dean?" he calls out, keeping the relief out of his voice. "Where've you been?"

"Just getting some fresh air, stretching my legs, Sammy."

And Sam takes a good look at his brother. He seems okay, Sam thinks. So unless he's hiding it really well, they just might make it through this in one piece.


End file.
